


tell me now, how do i feel

by mondaycore



Series: blue monday [2]
Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Angst, Dubious Consent, Emotional Manipulation, M/M, Rough Sex, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Harm, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 07:34:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20373052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mondaycore/pseuds/mondaycore
Summary: Because all he needs is someone to say yes. That’s all he’s asking for. He doesn’t want understanding, or sympathy or empathy, or God forbid, pity. He just needs someone to sayyes Charles, okay Charles,and then put their hands around his neck and do what they will.





	tell me now, how do i feel

**Author's Note:**

> so i wasn’t planning on expanding upon [the original](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20288164), but the overwhelmingly positive support and calls for a sequel the first go-around was enough to wedge this idea far enough up my brain that only writing it would bring me peace, you know how it goes. so, back by (un)popular demand — charles and his terrible horrible no good very bad coping mechanisms.
> 
> title once again from “blue monday” by new order, and once again, be warned, this ain’t very nice.

He goes first to Pierre. It’s a safe bet, he figures, because Pierre is his oldest friend, his universal constant, his trusted confidant. And because, most importantly, Pierre has never once in his life been able to deny anything Charles asks him for. Because all he needs is someone to say _yes_. That’s all he’s asking for. He doesn’t want understanding, or sympathy or empathy, or God forbid, pity. He just needs someone to say _yes Charles, okay Charles, _and then put their hands around his neck and do what they will.

“You want what?” Pierre asks, lowering his voice to a hush even though they’re alone in the room. There’s a flash of wounded disbelief in his eyes, like Charles had physically struck him. And he might as well have, because to someone like Pierre, all cruelty is equal and equally unforgivable, even if it’s the type where you load the gun and point it at your own head.

“I want you to hurt me,” Charles mumbles. 

“_Dieu_,” Pierre says, running a hand over his mouth distractedly. “Why?”

Charles shrugs. He doesn’t have the strength to explain himself, how he’s spent night after night lying awake, burning with it, white-hot, a killing heat. Fury turned inward upon himself like an animal gnawing its own leg off to get free of a trap, the desire to shatter every mirror he looks into, the craving for _something_ but he doesn’t know _what_, the knowledge that his best is not good enough, that _he’s_ not enough_, Charles, you’re_ _never, ever enough. _He just wants something to cut through the noise, to give him just a few hours’ blessed peace and fucking quiet —

“Please, Pierre,” Charles says, _ if you care about me you’ll do this, if you love me, please, please, please _, and lies back on the couch they’re huddled on and pulls Pierre down by the shoulders to settle on top of him. 

It’s a sick thing to do to someone, twisting their love and devotion into a knife held up against their throat. Charles knows this. He also knows he’ll never be able to look Pierre in the eye again after this, but for asking what he’s asking of the man, he doesn’t deserve to.

In the end Pierre fucks him like Charles knows he’s been wanting to ever since they were teenagers and it’s fine but actually it’s awful, because Pierre’s hands around his wrists are so _gentle_ and he keeps asking _is this okay, is this okay_. And it is, but that’s not the point, Charles doesn’t want _okay _because he’s not _okay_. Pierre looks like he’s in the kind of pain Charles wants to be in, and it turns his stomach, brings up a bitter taste of remorse in the back of his throat. 

_ See Charles, this is what happens, Charles _ , _ now your best friend hates himself, _ Charles _ , and it’s all your fucking fault _. Because Pierre has nothing in him but kindness, and Charles has a black hole where his heart should be, eating up everything good he’s ever had, contaminating everything he touches as well with that hatred, that emptiness — 

\--

Lando is even worse than Pierre because he keeps _apologizing _every time his fingers so much as slip an inch from where he’s locked them in a death grip around Charles’ shoulders. And when he’s not saying _sorry, sorry_, he’s got this wide-eyed, rabbit-in-headlights look like he can’t quite believe what he’s doing. Like he wants to give Charles what he wants but he’s afraid to because _holy shit it’s Charles Leclerc_ he’s got under him. Not so much a pity fuck as a _what the_ _fuck_.

When they’re done, Lando gets this morbidly curious glint in his eye and prods a finger into one of the bruises he’d left on Charles’ arm. Charles hisses, savoring the sweet, low ache which for the first time that night quiets down some of the clamoring in his head, and Lando snatches his hand back as if he’d been burnt.

“Sorry,” he says one more time for good measure, looking like a kicked puppy, ashamed of himself.

“It’s okay,” Charles says. But it’s not. And apparently Lando can tell it’s not because he just looks even more despondent, like it’s _ his _ fault and it’s not Charles who is _ manipulative sick in the head disgusting, Charles, what the fuck is wrong with you, Charles, why do you keep doing this to people who don’t want it and don’t deserve it. _

\--

He spends the next few weeks trying and trying and _ failing _despite his best efforts, a string of fourths and fifths and a spectacular crashing-out in the streets of his own home race. He’s crawling out of his own skin, suffocating with impotent rage and self-disgust, until that night he finally works up the nerve to approach Lewis. The twenty of them may be a pantheon of demigods unto themselves, but Lewis manages to maintain an air of the untouchable about him even still. He’s paddock royalty, someone not to merely approach but to pay fealty to. 

Lewis smirks when he opens the door to his hotel room, like he knows _ exactly _why Charles is standing there but is expecting to be impressed nonetheless. Charles flushes in embarrassment but he obliges, leaning himself against the doorframe and casts his gaze up through his lashes. Parts his lips a little too, runs his tongue over the edge of his teeth, toys with the hem of his shirt for good measure, playing the part of the ingénue who doesn’t know how he looks, doing this.

He’s gotten quite good at it, the asking, the offering of an unsigned invitation with carte blanche terms. _ Look at what you’ve come to, Charles. _

He puts on a good enough audition, apparently, because Lewis lets him in without another word.

He makes Charles kneel under the desk and slowly, _ slowly _ suck him off as he clicks around on his laptop, pulling Charles’ hair as warning when he gets overzealous and speaking up only once to say “hands behind your back, Charles,” like a disinterested schoolteacher might. 

After what feels like hours, he pulls Charles onto the bed to sprawl between his legs — “you’re a clever boy, you know what to do” — as he scrolls his phone. And then when he gets bored of that, he makes Charles sit on his lap, his chest against Charles’ back, his dick up Charles’ ass, as he watches a movie, start to finish.

Every time the scene changes and the laptop screen goes black, Charles sees himself reflected in all of his exquisite humiliation, nails digging into his palms and teeth biting into his lip to keep himself quiet and still like Lewis wants him to be. It hurts, but not in the way he wanted to at all, and the way Lewis’ dismissive gaze cuts across him keeps him from saying anything.

When the movie finally ends, Lewis pushes him down flat on the bed, fucks him and comes in his ass, pats him on the cheek, then rolls over and turns the lights out and goes right to sleep. He’s said maybe twenty words to Charles, total. 

Charles slinks out in the dark, painfully hard and dripping down the insides of his thighs. When he gets back to his place, he runs the shower as hot as he can stand and scrubs at himself over and over again until the water goes freezing cold, not daring to allow himself release. But even still he feels filthy and degraded. But what did he expect, really, _ Charles, you thought you were worthy of asking him anything? Him, Charles? You? You should be grateful for what he did for you, Charles. _

Later he lies awake, dully scrolling through social media even though he’s dying for sleep, and he sees an artful selfie posted by @lewishamilton with some inane caption about _ enjoying a quiet night in_. He knows where that room is, knows _ when _ that was taken, knows what, or who, he would see had the picture been just a little less, say, _ tastefully _ cropped.

Charles throws his phone across the room so hard he hears something crack and curls up tightly in bed, swallowing down the urge to vomit. 

\--

Nico’s expecting him. The moment Charles knocks on the door to his room, it flies open, and Nico slams him up against the wall, one arm barred across his neck, his knee pushing into Charles’ crotch.

“Was wondering when you’d show up,” Nico says. “I’d heard you were making the rounds.”

Taken completely by surprise, Charles can only shake his head in a panic to deny it, but Nico smiles in a very unkind way.

“Don’t lie to me,” he says, digging his knee in harder. Suddenly, a different kind of pain jolts through him and Charles finds himself face-down on the nearest table, one arm trapped beneath him, the wrist of his free hand caught in a crushing grip. “You had a bad weekend, didn’t you? And you need someone to make you feel better about it. Or worse. Which is it?”

“Nico — ”

“Answer me,” Nico snaps, and twists his arm up mercilessly. Charles yelps, contorting himself on the polished tabletop so that Nico doesn’t dislocate his shoulder. “This is what you want. This is why you’re here.” 

“Yes! Yes, yes, Nico,” Charles says, his mouth on autopilot as his brain scrambles to catch up. He hears Nico fumbling around with his clothes.

“Ooh, _ thought _ so,” Nico drawls, but there’s something terribly _ off _ about his tone, and it’s not until Charles twists around and gets a good look at the man that he realizes Nico is actually and absolutely _ furious _, and then suddenly the hand vised around the back of his neck seems a hell of a lot more serious.

“Nico, wait — ” Charles says, and Nico snarls and grabs him by the hair and slams him down hard enough that he tastes wet metal in the back of his throat, blood running down his mouth.

“Shut _up_, _shut up_,” Nico hisses, and he fucks Charles right there against the desk without any preparation at all, Charles’ brain screaming _no no no wait no _but his body saying _yes, fucking finally, _wanting it, hating it. And the entire time Nico hissing in his ear: _must feel terrible, having a bad weekend, coming in second, the champagne must taste fucking awful up on that podium, try having a bad _decade, _you whining, self-pitying little slut, wallow in it some more, I dare you_ _—_

Charles lets out a whimper, and Nico clamps his free hand around Charles’ mouth to shut him up and adjusts his grip on Charles’ neck so his fingers are digging into his jugular. Charles thrashes and flails, tries to draw breath but he _ can’t_, and that’s the tipping point where fear overrides anything else he’s getting out of this. He starts struggling for real, darkness flickering at the edges of his vision, his heartbeat slamming against his ribs, weaker every time, noise distorting like he’s slipping underwater, his slowly numbing fingers scrabbling futilely against the table for purchase.

He’s going to die, he’s going to _fucking_ die, Nico is honest-to-God going to kill him. 

It seems like an eternity before Nico finishes with a short, sharp grunt and lets him go, and it all comes back to him at once in such an acute rush it’s nearly painful — sound, sensation, _ life_. The first desperate breath he takes feels like burning, like it’s scouring him clean from the inside out. He falls to the ground, coughing and heaving, breath after breath, starving for it. 

“Get the fuck out,” Nico says, launching a kick at his ribs. Charles curls in on himself when it connects, but he doesn’t have to be told twice. Fighting the vertigo and the ringing in his ears, he rolls to his feet and gets the fuck out.

He stumbles into the nearest bathroom and throws up in the toilet, the bile brought up from an empty stomach burning his already-raw throat. As he cleans himself up in the sink, washing away the blood and vomit, he takes a good, hard look at himself in the mirror and tells himself he’s not going to do this anymore, he shouldn’t, he _ can’t_. But he knows that’s a lie, because he still can’t bear to look at his own reflection, not when the man in the mirror is telling him: _ you should have said thank you to Nico, Charles, you should have said please, Nico, keep going, harder, harder, finish the job. _

\--

He shies away from all human touch for a week afterward, still feeling Nico’s hands on him whenever someone so much as brushes up against him. He walks around in a daze, half-terrified of others, mostly terrified of himself, so skittish and mute that Sebastian gets that paternally concerned look on his face that Charles can hardly bear.

Would Sebastian, Charles wonders, and then thinks, Jesus Christ, no, what the fuck. That’s fucked up, even for him. He takes it as a good sign he hasn’t hit rock bottom yet, that there are at least still a few lines in the sand he’s not willing to cross.

\--

Daniel refuses. Flat-out. He lets Charles beg and plead and threaten and use all his tricks and then some until he feels like the cheap desperate whore he is, writhing against him where he’s straddled across Daniel’s lap.

“Come on, come _ on_,” Charles pleads, on the verge of tears, because Daniel isn’t _ doing _anything, just sitting there expressionlessly, statuelike, transfixed. And that’s the worst part of all, because that’s not a look that belongs on Daniel’s face. This is a man who ought to be smiling and laughing, triumphant in victory or furious in defeat, angry, derisive, disgusted. Never so horribly still and blank like this. “Please, Daniel.” 

Charles does something he’s never done up to now, but hey, he’s run out of road and the edge of the cliff is fast approaching — he puts his arms on Daniel’s shoulders and lurches forward and puts his mouth on Daniel’s. And then finally, _ finally_, Daniel moves, settling his hands on Charles’ hips.

Good, Charles thinks vengefully. He’s won. Now it begins.

But all Daniel does is gently slide his hands up Charles’ back, deflecting and pulling him in so Charles is tucked up against the crook of his neck and shoulder.

“Oh, Charles,” Daniel says, sounding heartsick and heartbroken. Something within Charles finally breaks and he starts crying in earnest, perched on Daniel’s lap, silent and trembling like he’s shaking apart. Daniel runs a hand through Charles’ hair and down his back like he’s soothing a spooked animal, holds him through it as he draws in long, shuddering breaths. “What happened to you, kid?”

Charles lets out a quiet, wounded keen. That’s the fucked-up part, he doesn’t _ know_, he doesn’t _ know _ what’s happened to him, he doesn’t know why or how it came to this. Just knows that he _ can’t stop, won’t stop_, is unsure if he knows _ how _ to stop at this point. It’s barely even about him anymore. It’s about proving himself to someone else, proving he can endure the very worst they can do to him, at least, since he can’t seem to prove himself to this all-consuming beast inside him that demands _ better, more, faster,_ _faster_.

When the worst of it subsides, Daniel carries him to bed like an actual child. They curl up into each other, sweet and innocent as anything, Daniel wrapped around him like he’s determined to body-shield Charles against the outside world at the cost of his own life. Charles doesn’t have the heart to tell him that it’s not the outside world that drives him to this. It’s merely a symptom, not a cause. 

They lie there in silence for however long, a few minutes, a few hours, Daniel mindlessly stroking a hand down his arms, his ribs, the outside of his thigh, when suddenly he says, “it’s not the speed that kills you.”

“What?” Charles asks. “What does that mean?”

Charles feels rather than sees Daniel shrug. 

“Just something I heard someone say once,” he says, and reaches over Charles and turns out the lights. “Means you need to get some rest, little one.”

But Daniel doesn’t go to sleep. Neither does Charles. Instead, he lies there, eyes closed, still enough and breathing evenly enough that it fools Daniel into thinking the coast is clear and that he’s gone to sleep. And then he hears _ Daniel _ start crying, short, sharp little gasps like someone’s hurting him, and as much as he tries to stifle it, Charles can feel it shaking through his body, down to his bones.

Charles suddenly feels suffocated by it, all this, this — _love? Charles, please. — _this _whatever_, and it’s more than he can tolerate, makes him feel hollowed-out and angry, the shame of worry, the shame of knowing he'd disappointed again. It's bleeding out of him again, this infection, the sickness in him poisoning everyone around him, too.

He gives up the game and slips out from the circle of Daniel’s arms and flees before Daniel can even think to call him back. When he’s back in the cold silence of his own room he lays on top of his sheets and closes his eyes and sees in his head, for some reason, the dark, glittering ocean of Monaco at night viewed from a very great height. Turns what Daniel had said over and over in his mind until it makes sense: it’s not the speed, it’s not the height, _ it’s the sudden stop at the end. _

He knows what Daniel’s trying to tell him, and though he desperately wishes he could, he _can’t_. Because if he slows down, if he stops climbing, if he _gets some rest, little one_, then who is he? He’s nothing at all. He curls up tightly into himself, pretending there’s a solid warmth behind him, surrounding him, a kind hand on his shoulder, a kiss pressed into his hair. Imagines it, just to see how it might feel. Nothingness. Oblivion.

\--

Which brings him to Max.

He’s studiously avoided Max up until now, because he’s never too sure where they stand. Friends? Rivals? That vague and awkward in-between that consists of tense press conferences and stilted, contrived conversations? Charles figures it’s probably a bad sign when you have to look to the media to figure out exactly how you’re supposed to feel about someone, whether you supposedly hate them or not this week.

But after Hockenheim, that spectacular, unholy disaster, he’s out of fucking options. So he goes to Max.

He expects a fight — gets one, very nearly, the anger in Max’s eyes flashing hot when he makes his ask, the way he clenches his hands into fists — but at the last minute something seems to click, and Max smiles and turns it all toward the _ other _thing.

It’s good, it’s _ great_, singleminded brutality, the perfect razor’s edge between bliss and sadism that drives all other thoughts from his mind for a blessed half-hour. Looks like it’s good for Max, too, the way he delights in it, a hand around Charles’ neck, his fingers jammed down Charles’ throat.

There’s a moment after Max finishes where he gets this look on his face that even in his wound-up strung-out state Charles recognizes and despises, remorse, regret. He thinks, _ God, not _ this _ again_, but even the way Max apologizes to him is cruel, holding him right on the edge until he does something that the others had never managed to bring him to, and breaks and starts fucking _ begging _ for it. It’s always been kindness that he cannot bear.

Afterwards, Max almost ruins it again by starting up that tired old lecture,_ you should stop doing this to yourself _ , which Charles _ knows _, he’s aware, okay, but then surprises him again by asking him to at least come back to him, next time.

Which is _ dangerous _, Charles thinks, even as that pathetically needy part of him all but rolls over and shows its belly. Max had been the nicest to him out of all the others because he’d been the only person to have given Charles exactly what he wanted.

_ You’ve gotten everything you’ve ever wanted, Charles, and yet look at you, you’ve wasted it all anyway, and yet you think you deserve more — _

Max kisses him then and Charles thinks, no, of _ course _ Max would understand. Because he _ knows _Charles, has grappled with him wheel-to-wheel in the only other place where he’s purely driven by that howling thing inside him. Max is looking at him like Charles belongs to him, and maybe he does because he’s the only one who knows him, truly, knows that it’s one and the same: racing, this, whatever this is, because the shadow in him doesn’t make a distinction between the two.

Okay, Charles thinks. Okay, okay, okay, okay, and he doesn’t realize he’s said it out loud until he feels Max smiling a little against his mouth in satisfaction. 

Charles’ stomach lurches, and he thinks, here it is: here is the long fall. He’s stepped off the edge of the cliff, and all that awaits him now, should it ever come, should Max ever let it happen — is the sudden, spectacular stop.

**Author's Note:**

> idk idk alright alright cool COOL cool this was supposed to be a quick short thing and got incredibly out of hand goddamn it. is this even coherent? who knows. 
> 
> another round of apologies for any mistakes in grammar, spelling, morals, ethics, life choices, and another round of disclaimers: this is entirely fiction of my own creation and please keep it out of sight of the real world and the real people involved.
> 
> thank you for reading and hope you enjoyed this, mic drop, i'm out!


End file.
